Running
without a restart.

Power Managment on Powerbooks.

Initially, one of the services I missed most with Linux on my Powerbook was the ability to sleep. Here is how to add a high degree of power management with sleep.

First, you need a kernel with power management compiled in. You are welcome to use mine from my Powerbook G3/Wallstreet II, but you should learn to compile your own.

• vmlinux_2.2.14 and System.map
• modules_2.2.14

You can also try one of the supplied kernels. I believe there is one called "Stable Powerbook".

Next, download this recent pmud package and install it with the following command:

rpm -i pmud-0.5-1.ppc.rpm

Type the following into a terminal:

cd /dev
mknod pmu c 10 154

Now you need the little utilities to actually tell the computer to go to sleep!. Download and install snooze provides the command to put the Powerbook to sleep:

rpm -i snooze-0.1-1.ppc.rpm

If you want to have a little graphical display of the battery settings, download Batmon and Bat. Place both of these in /usr/bin with excecutable permissions. Bat reads the battery settings, and Batmon is the display on the right.

At this point, you have installed everything you need for power management. Reboot the computer to load the pmud deamon.

After logging in, run Batmon from a terminal to see the display. Try putting the computer to sleep. If sleep works, but you have a screen full of snow after waking, log out and back in to remove the snow. This is a know problem that there is no fix for. You can try adding the following to you BootX kerenl args:

video=atyfb:vmode:14,cmode:32,pll:135,mclk:63

Also, after waking, the trackpad will be 'tapable' again, even if you turned it off previously, but at least you will be able to put the Powerbook to sleep. This will prove priceless when your train pulls up to your stop and you have to shut down Linux quickly!

Rob Worman adds that it's a good idea to put the hard disk into standby mode before the copmuter goes to sleep: